FORM: Anthropology as design

Abstract

This essay argues for design as an expression of analytic rigour and ethical commitment. It explores what it might mean to ‘write’ in collaboration with the entities and forces from Country, ancestors, oceans, soil, honeyeaters, sound, wild bores, frogs, fire, ash, sand, trees, and echoes, to colour, code, bitrates, cameras, computers, and archives. Every design decision in ‘Epistemic attunements’ was conceptually-motivated and informed by an anthropologically-attuned sensibilty. It was never simply a case of making things look ‘beautiful’. The analytic force of the design propelled our intermedial arguments forward, but also sideways, down through layers, into shifts of sensation and abrupt moments of pause for specific critical effect.